By ALICIA LEONARD
DeFuniak Springs – The DeFuniak Springs Economic Development Committee met the evening of Aug. 11, 2016 for their regular monthly meeting, and to discuss the administration of future grants, approve past meeting minutes and how citizen volunteers on the board feel about a recent call at a past city council meeting for the board to be dissolved.
With a majority and both Chair Mac Work and Vice Chair Rebecca King present the board approved four sets of past minutes before the discussion turned to the who and how the second year of the Department of Economic Opportunity Competitive Florida $40,000 grant was going to be administered.
Interim City Manager/Public Works Director Tilman Mears, and Planning Director Kelly Schultz explained that they were able to pick up the ball and continue with administering the grant in-house after former grant coordinator Dr. Robert McKnight decided to end his association with the project.
The board also discussed future projects such as working towards a Community Reinvestment Act (CRA Program grant) as well as the Main Street program. The board is facing a little of the chicken-versus-egg quandary as the CRA needs to be secured to have the funds to partner with the Main Street program to get the ball rolling. The board agreed the ball needed to be put onto the court to get the process moving forward, and Mears and Schultz responded they were already in the process of paperwork and meeting to help the board and city achieve their objective of improving the economic climate for business owners and citizens.
The last item on the agenda concerned a city council meeting held on July 25, where Councilman Mac Carpenter had an agenda item requesting to discuss a special July 7 meeting held by the EDC. Carpenter, according to an article in the July 28, 2016 edition of the Herald/Breeze, spoke of being concerned that an incident had occurred and the behavior of an unspecified member of the board were not allowing the board to work functionally. Carpenter called then for a motion to dismiss the board.
Vice-Chair King attended the meeting where the dismissal was called for, and requested the item be placed on the EDC agenda so board members that were not present could discuss the issue.
Board member Angie Willoughby spoke of feeling that the volunteers on the board give much of their private time in efforts to help improve the business climate in the city in hopes of improving the future and had hoped that Carpenter would be attending their meeting to discuss his motion.
She said she understood that his concerns were not with all the members but his motion for dismissal stung. “I read the article in the paper and I feel like we kind of deserve an apology. I’d be happy to talk to him here or at my shop, but I do think we need to talk. There’s more than just one of us that volunteer to do this.”
Mayor Bob Campbell was in attendance in the audience during the ensuing discussion, responding diplomatically that while he could not speak on behalf of Carpenter, or anyone else, he felt that he, and all the council members and the board could overcome any issues and work together, and they all greatly appreciated the time given by Willoughby and her fellow board members, and that the situation that gave rise to Carpenter’s motion was emotionally charged.
Work joined in the discussion as the meeting came to close by saying, “I just didn’t think we should pay someone 60 percent of the grant funds to administer the grant.”